Hi Blanchy,

I agree with what Josh said...don't skimp on the oil but rather skim it off prior to serving (you can use this oil for your next curry for added flavour).

However, if you're insistent on reducing the oil, I'd suggest you're probably best off reducing it in your base rather than your main dish (as Jerry suggests).

In my opinion, if you skimp too much on the oil (particularly in the main dish...I personally wouldn't use less than about 75ml per serving), you run of the risk of making a poor tasting and poorly textured curry.  The reason being that it is the oil that dissolves and distributes the volatile oils from your spices.

PS:  thanks for trying the recipe and for posting your results and photos  .....why were you "really surprised"?

Quote from: blanchy on January 03, 2010, 11:59 AM
Thanks, I'm going to try the KD base sauce again

Blanchy,

try some of the bases off the site. i made the KD base for yrs but since joining the site i've never since made it. not that it's not good but the extra veg and slightly different simple spicing in the site recipes make a better final curry. for example fresh coriander stalk - i now use in all bases.

blanchy,

yes for defo - i completely agree with u on changing just one thing at a time. crucial

i use the same amount/proportion of oil in every base i make ie 100ml in 800g onion. in switching from KD to site bases and tasting the base after cooking i felt the oil overpowered and subsequently gave an inferior dish taste (unless the oil surfaces during the cooking as per BIR). i then tried progressively reducing the oil in the base. i settled on 100ml as i add more oil to reclaim it for cooking and the 100ml seems to be what the base naturally retains. if i did not reclaim then i would most probably reduce to 50ml but if u're getting 8 to 10 portions then it's becoming less of a concern.

these days in terms of sat fat the frying oil burns off into smoke during the cooking. the oil in the base is retained though and only released towards the end of cooking.

Hi,

I used my last base on this last week whilst under the influence ;D cant remember how good or bad it was so today I made a new batch of CA's base and knocked up this Madras.  I found it very similar to my local BIR.  Very very nice CA thanks very much, it went down nice with a couple of cold beers

Will

Glad you liked it Will and Fishaman